“I hope you don’t mind if I just wait down here,” Philomena called after me. “I think tree climbing is a little more excitement than I’m up for today. I am wearing one of my favorite dresses, afterall.”
“All of your dresses are your favorites,” I remindedher.
“Well, that’s the only way to properly live one’s life, isn’tit?”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m not even sureIshould be doingthis.”
I peered over the rough stones. The tower wasn’t just an empty cylinder. A set of narrow stone steps wound down the inside in a spiral, down to a soil-strewn floor mostly swallowed by shadow. The lines of more etchings caught sunlight and shadow along the walls all the way down. All of them appearedwhole.
Whoever had scraped away the ones outside hadn’t made it this far—or hadn’t realized they’d needto.
“Well, what’s up there, then?” Philomena’s voice followed me. “I might not want to climb trees, but that doesn’t mean I’m notcurious.”
The corners of my mouth curled up. “There are stairs inside. I’m goingin.”
I swung one leg and then the other over the crumbling stones at the top and found my balance on the steps. The air felt a few degrees cooler simply easing inside that darker space. I edged down just far enough to make out the carvingshere.
“Still alive?” Philinquired.
“Yep,” I called back. “Nothing too exciting yet. Just moreetchings.”
These ones weren’t all glyphs. A few, like the ones below, were scattered across the stones, along with others I hadn’t seen on the outside: passion and power, trust and loyalty, openness and cohesion—how did those two even work together? But the rest of the etched images were closer to pictures, though rough ones. Figures standing with arms raised or held out to each other or linked by the hands. Most of them were pairs, with a flame carved inside one’s chest. My heartleapt.
These were pictures of consorting. Witches and their partners. Butthen…
My gaze stuck on one image that showed a woman with a flame filling her entire chest. Not one but three other figures stood around her, reaching toward her in the start of an embrace. I stared at it, my breath catching in mythroat.
“Oh!”
“What?” Philomena said. “Don’t leave me dying with anticipation down here,Rose.”
“There’s… there are pictures of consorts. I think. But some ofthem…”
“Some of themwhat?”
“Some of the witches appear to have more than one. Consort, thatis.”
If that etching in front of me was meant to represent one woman with three consorts, no wonder her spark flared so brightly. But taking more than one consort would never be allowed, if it even worked that way. There were only so many witching families, only so many witching men. If some witches had taken multiple partners, too many others would be left without. And once you’d bound your spark to one consort, no other man could light it, even aflicker.
“My goodness,” Phil said. “That sounds ratherexciting.”
“Well, they’re notdoinganything in the pictures, if that’s what you’rethinking.”
“Hmph. That is a bit of ashame.”
I stared at the etching. Who had carved this, and when? I didn’t remember ever reading a story, even one of those questionable folk tales, where a witch took additional consorts. Could you bind your spark to more than one mansimultaneously?
That picture wasn’t the only odd one either. As my gaze darted down, I spotted another that showed a woman with two consorts, a second with three, one with four, and—was that witch surrounded byseven? Holy Spark, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could keep up with that number ofpartners.
But at the same time, a tingling warmth crept through me, pooling at the base of my belly. Even if I couldn’t imagine it, something about the idea did feel rather…appealing.
Time seemed to have stilled around me with the air and the sounds of the forest. I was only broken out of that dazed reverie by the crunch of footsteps somewhere beyond the tower walls. Real footsteps, not Philomena gettingrestless.
My pulse stuttered. Bracing my hands against the gritty stone, I eased up to peek over the top of thetower.
A man was walking through the woods, circling the towers and the arch between them. Tall and gangly, with hair not quite as dark a chestnut as my father’s and a face much more sallow—oh, it was Douglas, Celestine’sassistant.
Normally he acted as her ambassador of sorts, going off to meet with clients when she couldn’t be bothered to. What was he doing prowling around in the woods? And why here? He almost looked as if he were specifically checking for any signs of recenttrespassing.